About the Poem
I did this call as a paramedic. As we entered the back door, stretcher in hand, we saw her - bracketed by the home care nurse and a social worker. She wore a scarf that hooded her face and her long gray hair hung dirty and straight, further indrawing her features. Her tired old dress clung to her as she held the workers on either side for support. The faded, not too clean, bodice of her dress froze agonizingly with each breath.
The caseworker said " She found her husband on the floor last week and tried to lift him up. We think she tore some rib muscles and has developed pneumonia." We started our treatment and as we worked I looked around. Every room was stacked with boxes and old newspapers, the lights were dingy and walls were dirty with soot from the old wood stove in the kitchen. It looked like the house inside had never seen the light of day and indeed through the caregiver's narrative we heard, "They lived here forty years and hardly ever came out."
My thought was, they became each others universe inside these walls. We finished up and took her to the hospital. It wasn't until two weeks later I slipped through my mind into that same kitchen, a week before we actually arrived and I found her kneeling with her dead husband in her arms and she was saying to him -
Never Again |
| by Vinny |
| The day will come When I reach out For the hand I love in mine Only to find it is cold Just like buying a rose In a store You know it's dead When its sold You'll not feel the heat Of my tears As they flow thru My lashes and fall Or comfort my body in agony As I kneel in pieces and weep Forever you said just yesterday And now its never at all Oh! From the very moment I saw your face so divine Captured I was like the flavor Neath the cork in the wine Imprisoned in the thought Of the softness of your lips As they pressed So warmly to mine We've walked the many days Of our lives together, Hand in hand, your love To me inclined Well met we made a bargain Till now well made and true To hold each other lovey The way I'm holding you But you can't hear my crying love Your far past too old to hear Aahhh, death has made you deaf And me alone still living here Remember when our eyes they met And saw the whispered sighs We did not wait till dark was late To satisfy our cries Oh have we rushed thru life my dear Too fast to savor or fear The thought of being so close Or never again being near So much isn't said In the lines we have read But I have placed Between them with care For you ,the one, the beautiful I will always be there |